An example of a madstone (National Museum of Health and Medicine)
Growing up in the piney woods of Winn Parish, I became quite familiar with a lot of home remedies that the old folks swore by. Soaking one’s foot in coal oil after stepping on a rusty nail, putting chewed tobacco on a wasp sting, and taking a spoonful of sugar to stop the hiccups: these were just a few of the myriad cures. Recently, however, I came across an old remedy that I had never heard of—a madstone.
A madstone is actually a bezoar, or a round, hardened concretion that is sometimes found in the stomachs of animals and humans. It is formed when calcium and magnesium phosphate form around a small piece of undigested material. Over time, it becomes hard and round like a rock and can be found in different shapes and colors. Madstones are usually about the size of a golf ball.
People who used madstones for medicinal purposes believed that those taken from an albino or piebald deer were the most effective. The madstone was most often used to treat various infections and the bites from animals and venomous snakes. When laid on a bite wound it was said to be able to draw out infection “like a leech sucked full,” and it could even remove venom and ward off rabies.
Apparently, both Native Americans and Europeans used madstones hundreds of years ago. One was found in an ancient Missouri Indian mound, and it was claimed that Queen Elizabeth I wore one around her neck. A dozen madstones were also found in the remains of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish treasure galleon that sank in the Florida Keys in 1622.
There are different ways to use a madstone, but one popular method was to first heat it up in a container of boiling milk and then apply it to the wound. The madstone would stick to the wound and then be reheated in the milk every time it fell off. It was believed that as long as the madstone stuck to the wound it was drawing out the venom or infection. Afterwards, the stone was wiped clean and put away.
How long it took the madstone to heal the patient depended on how much venom or infection was in the wound. Sometimes it only took a few hours, but sometimes it may have taken a week or more.
Even doctors were known to keep a madstone to treat patients. Because of their rarity, the stones were considered precious and carefully guarded. One madstone in East Texas was even kept in the county treasurer’s office.
The Madstone of Vacherie is a famous Louisiana madstone that has been passed down in the Gravois family for well over one hundred years. According to one legend, a Native American used it successfully to treat a member of the Gravois family who had been bitten by a venomous snake.
Later, the healer fell seriously ill and the Gravois family cared for him for a long time. In appreciation, he gave the madstone to the family and explained that it would keep its magical power as long as it stayed in the family.
Other sources claim that Joseph Webre was the Vacherie madstone’s original owner. One newspaper reported that an Indian chief presented Webre the purple, brown, and gray madstone around 1857 in appreciation for some unspecified act of kindness. “It is all I have,” he declared, “but while you have this you need never fear the bite or sting of any animal, bird or fish.”
Whatever its origin, the Madstone of Vacherie became well known and people travelled long distances seeking its magical power. On one occasion a woman developed blood poisoning after snagging her arm on a barbed wire fence. Her doctors could not help her and recommended amputation but she sought help from the Gravois family, instead. It took nine days of treatment, but the madstone finally healed the infected arm.
Other cases included a man who was healed of tetanus after being bitten by a dog and a man suffering from a rattlesnake bite being brought back from near death.
According to an 1892 issue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Vacherie madstone was used successfully more than one hundred times.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.
